Telecommunications systems, cable television systems and data communication networks use optical networks to rapidly convey large amounts of information between remote points. In an optical network, information is conveyed in the form of optical signals through optical fibers. Optical fibers comprise thin strands of glass capable of communicating the optical signals over long distances with very low loss. Optical networks often employ wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) or dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) to increase transmission capacity. In WDM and DWDM networks, a number of optical channels are carried in each fiber at disparate wavelengths, thereby increasing network capacity.
In WDM and DWDM networks, optical transmitters transmit the optical signals at the optical channels such that each channel corresponds with a transmitter. As the number of required channels increases, the number of required transmitters increases. Also, as the number of transmitters increases the likelihood that one of the transmitters may fail increases. Traditionally, replacing transmitters can be complicated and expensive, but building high quality transmitters to reduce the incidence of failure is also expensive.